Can your year one child read the following?

[soandsosmummy]

The first satellite was called Sputnik and was the size of a football. Now satellites are very big.

The communications satellite orbits the earth at 36 thousand kilometers. Television signals take quarter of a second to reach it and then another quarter of a second to bounce back to our television screens.
_

DD had a bit of trouble with this and I'm wondering if its a normal expectation for a child in first term of year 1 to be able to read this or if they've given her wrong book by accident. It was a 32 page book with 6-8 sentences a page all at a similar reading level to above.

No!
No chance.
But when they send books home which are designed to be read as 'word recognition' with loads of guessing, read it through to them first, maybe even twice. Then read with them, and fill in words they can't read, and just let them read the words they can.
You don't have to tortuously get them to sound out every word. Our reading together improved no end once I gathered that!

It has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 8.5, which means it is a suitable level of text for a child with a reading age of about 13 in the US.

In other words this is roughly equivalent to a secondary school level text in the UK.

Teacher appears to have lost the plot.

This is an old satellite. It is small, like a football.
This is a new satellite. It is much bigger.
Satellites help us watch TV.
They send signals through the air.

That would be Y2-3 level.

Look! A satellite!
It is big.
It is in space.
It is round.

This would be Y1 level.

Look! Space!
Look Biff, look Chip!
A rocket is there!

This would be Reception level.

Someone earlier said that the 'brighter' children are on level 6 in year one. I think that is an unhelpful generalisation, there are many children who are not quick to learn to read well, who turn out to be very intelligent in later years, (especially dyslexic children). Early reading does not correlate with intelligence. It is a shame to assume that a child is 'not bright' if they are not reading at level 6 in year one.

In the end of the day, most children end up reading well by year 4 or so. It's not being able to read that makes people bright, it's the quality of their thinking processes which will determine how they will handle complex subjects in later years.

Also before the age of about 7 few children have any proper conception of time, so talking about quarters of seconds will mean nothing to most of them.

There isn't a lot of correlation between what reading level you are on in Year 1 and how bright you are. There are so many variables that it's not worth paying a lot of attention to things like this until children are at least 7 or 8, by which time nearly all of them should be reading fairly independently if they have been taught reasonably well.

xpost!

Ha ha ha ha.
Not a hope in hell.

But he is August born and only had 2 terms of reception. I think his reading is still as reception level tbh.

My year one child would not have been able to read it. But he would have been delighted to have such a book sent home in his book bag, so I could read it to him. Presumably it had interesting pictures of spaceships/satellites/planets.
Are you sure they didn't send it home for him to "look at" for pleasure? We have year 1 kids choose that sort of information book for peruse for pleasure all the time. They don't have to read it to enjoy the pictures and some of the key words in the captions/title page. Also to share with parents.

Conversely, my year one child would have bored stiff with a book that said "look a rocket. See Chip. Space up there etc etc" He "read" that sort of book when he was 2 years old. Anyway I beg to differ with a lot of msnetters as to what reading is about. It is not just about decoding sentences.

I can't imagine DD reading this at the end of Y1 never mind now. She's an Aug birthday, and is very good at words like "said" and "big".

Thank heavens for posts by OriginalPoster and BoffinMum.

Too much Competitive Reading on MN. In DCs Yr 6 class, half the children on the 'G&T table were not on chapter books until Yr 2. (I know - I was a reading assistant).

The average age for a child to be able to read (v simple texts) is 6. Many children who turn out to be bright were not early readers in the class.

I agree with Swanriver about sending books with challenging / interesting content, and reading it TO them.

In Year 1 my DS would have chosen it for himself, but wouldnt have a hope of reading most of it.

Did your DD chose it for herself?

Sounds like the wrong book to me! Yes some children would be able to read it at that age (e.g. those who'd started reading early), but even of those I doubt most would understand much of what they were reading. And surely no one would expect a child who'd only started learning to read in September to be able to read that!

Even if DCs are unchallenged by basic text, if the illustrations are good they often enjoy looking at these books at home and choose to do so. Similarly sometimes they choose incredibly hard books for similar reasons. Having any book at all (or comic) in their hands is good for them.

I've got more reservations about how the dull content might kill off any interest in science and astronomy. but that's probably something for another thread.

Better text for bright Y1-2 children.

We think space is dark and empty, apart from stars and planets.
But space has secrets.
Up high in the sky there are things we can't see with our eyes.
These things help us with our lives on earth.

This is a satellite. Look at its shape.
It is an old one. It is forty years old. It is called Sputnik. It was the very first satellite. It is very small, and when it is up in the sky we can't see it without a telescope.

Satellites send radio signals back to earth.
These signals travel very fast, faster than the time it takes you to sniff or sneeze.

Modern satellites are much bigger than Sputnik and do more.
They send us signals for TV, help us make phone calls and help us find our way around.

We have to be very careful how we look after the satellites so they don't bang into each other when they are in space.

Boffin - well done on your reworking! My DD (young July born Yr 1 but a good reader) would be able to read that AND understand it without help.....which she wouldn't have been able to do with the original text.

I bought her a set of Osbourne mini-science books ('Why does it rain?', What is space?' 'What happens when you eat food?' etc) and she quite likes these.

wow Boffinmum that text is great. I may print it out for her later. When I asked her what quarter of a second was she said "its faster than the cat can run to the food cupboard when I open it!". Orbit she defined as going round really really fast so she's sort of got an idea I think.

It was definitely sent home by teacher - there were other stories and non fiction in the book that she was fine with.

Its Ginn level 6 by the way so not sure really how it correlates to ORT - I think its probably around level 8 ORT but not sure.

Boffinmums first reworking for a reception child is about my understanding of space

If your DD is interested, I don't see a problem so long as she's not distraught that it's not as easy to read as her normal books. If it's more in the spirit of looking things up in the encyclopaedia than learning to read, that would be OK.

Dd1 struggled with satellite. She is year 2 but brings home year 3 books.

She said the book sounds very boring and she wouldn't want to read a whole book about satellites.

sticky - I once regaled DH with my theory about why car radios didn't work in tunnels. It's because the little radio waves (that are vaguely sperm shaped) can't swim fast enough against the wind tunnel effect and eventually get swept off the car aerial, whilst waving their little fists and shouting 'nooooooo, damn you......' as they are swept to oblivion.

He did this.

You'd have to teach the words satellite and telescope first, so they recognised them by sight in the text, as they are a bit long and sounding them out would interrupt the flow.

A new bit for the bottom:

In space things move around following special paths. This is called orbiting.
The earth orbits the sun.
The moon orbits the earth.
Satellites also orbit the earth.

(then put the bit about making sure satellites don't bang into each other and attempt to fall to earth while NASA panics and announces we may be doomed and thousands of people might die LOL)

Thank heavens for posts by OriginalPoster and BoffinMum.

Totally agree

I was just about to post the very same thing about reading ability not being a measure of 'brightness', especially in year 1.